Women Power

Angela Merkel

When she became a member of the FDJ district board and secretary for “Agitprop” (Agitation and Propaganda), Angela claimed that she was secretary for culture. When Merkel’s one time FDJ district chairman contradicted her, she insisted that: “According to my memory, I was secretary for culture. But what do I know? I believe I won’t know anything when I’m 80.”

Angela is a German politician and a former research scientist, who has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005 and the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000. She is the first woman to hold either office, the first German Chancellor to be born after World War II, and the first postreunification chancellor to be raised in the former East Germany.

Like most young people in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Angela was a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official youth movement sponsored by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Later, at the Academy of Sciences, she became a member and secretary for “Agitprop”.

She is a fervent football fan and has been known to both listen to games while in the Bundestag and to frequent games of the national team in her official capacity.